grebote

I've been seeing a girl now for 3 years, and I love her so much. We have really good times together, and just recently we had our 3rd year anniversary since we started dating. I feel connection to her like I've never felt with anyone else, and I know she feels the same way...but like any relationship we have our share of problems.

I think the root of the problem is that she hates herself. She hates how she looks, she thinks she is too fat (only about 135-140 for 5'8"), she thinks she has this ugly pug face, and no matter how many times I tell her I think she's beautiful it doesn't change a thing. She does not believe me.

She doesn't want to go back to college in the fall. Just recently she was suspended from a great school where she was a great student, one of the best there, for copying a paper off the net. I don't think she did it, and I believe her when she says she sold it to the company, as she had been very short on cash and was looking for easy money. Anyway, she got into another school, and is doing great there, straight A's, but it is not the place that she wants to be.

She hates her job, she works at a dump, and I'll leave it at that.

She wants to move on in life, move out of her parent's house, get her own apartment(with me) but right now this is just not feasible. We don't have the money right now, and besides, we go to school in two different states.

Basically she gets into these self-loathing moods every few months were she becomes distant, nothing can ever go right, everything is twisted in a negative way in her mind. Nothing I say matters, if I say nothing, it means that I don't care. Which I do, it tears me up to see her like this, in this much psychological pain. It is hard to love somebody who loathes herself this much. Just today she told me that she wants to cut herself, or drive off the road into a tree, the only thing stopping her is the problem it would cause her family. She cares about other people so much, yet does not give a shit about herself. Just a sidenote: she is seeing a psychologist bi-weekly but I fear he is doing nothing for her.

So this is my dilemma, and I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this, or if anyone has any advice to give...I am at a loss here...

maleficent

I feel the need to applaud you or staying with this young woman, many men would have given up long ago-- Good for you!

True confession time...
Not that anyone would ever be able to tell (roll eyes here) I have some major self esteem issues. I have definitely been in this young woman's place.

Unless you've been there, it's really hard for someone else to comprehend (kind of like explaining being shy to someone who's not -- they don't get it)

Maybe a change if therapists are in order for her. If she is willing to talk about it. Does she feel any improvement.

You can tell a person anything, unless they actually believe it themselves, it's just words. The bad stuff you tell yourself is a lot easier to believe than the good stuff anyone else tells you.

Small steps are what work in many cases, that will slowly build up self esteem, and self confidence. She's a caring person, that's wonderful, that's an amazing attribute for someone to have, a lot of people aren't. Would she consider volunteering somewhere, maybe something you can do together, so she can actually see a plus side to her caring.

Is there anything that she loves? Anything that she's passionate about? Build from there...

I need to think more about this... I'll be back...

__________________

grebote

Thank you for your kind responce, maleficent.

I really like the volunteering idea, the only problem is us finding the time to do it. See has almost no free time (either she is working or down a couple states taking summer classes) and in the fall I will be seeing even less of her. We haven been doing this for a couple years and are sort of used to it but it is still hard.

I have tried to help her with her self-esteem, but I am afraid I am just not good at it, and just when I think I may have helped, she gets into one of these ruts again.

I think you are onto something with the finding something she is passionate about. I am sitting here trying to think of something, but I am having trouble. It's just that she never really wants to relax, she always wants to work and keep herself busy, and I think she does this to avoid her thoughts. Her main hobby is crocheting, but I would not say she is passionate about it.

It just always seems like she is never happy where she is, she always wants to be doing something else, but she never has the courage to get up and find what she really wants.

maleficent

Unfortunately -- self esteem comes from self -- she's got to find it herself -- it's not something you can give to her. (though that'd be nice)

I'm still not done... I'm still thinking on this one...

Regarding volunteering, there are a lot of short term volunteering things available (my usual source is www.volunteermatch.com - -depending on your location, there may not be as much - -but it might be a start, just even spending an afternoon painting a classroom, or gardening. YOu can't get get down on yourself when you are doing good for others.... (really)

__________________

denim

"If you don't love yourself, you can't love other people!" - RAH

May be true, may not be. I can't say. Sure seems true in my case.

lurkette

Man, grebote, do I feel for you. I WAS that girl in college, and sometimes still am. (I can hear ratbastid, my long-suffering and long-loving husband typing a reply to this behind me on his computer...)

I'm afraid the only thing you can do is to continue loving her exactly as she is. She'll resist you, and continue to believe that she is unworthy, but the only thing you can do is hang on to her good qualities until she figures it out for herself. Being in the midst of self-loathing provides a lot of stuff for her - drama, attention, a good excuse not to try and therefore not to fail. Encourage her to get back in school, encourage her to do the things she's good at and enjoys, tell her you love her no matter what. I'm not usually the "go buy this book" type, but you might suggest that she check out "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach. It's about accepting yourself as you are and not hating yourself, basically.

I wish you lots of luck, and I hope that ratbastid can offer you some good advice on what's worked with me, and what's made it worth sticking around.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

GSRIDER

wow... you just described my wife.

and I must say, after 12 years of being together, that i do love her... but she has been on a downward spiral for the past 5 years.. and it is getting worse.

She refuses to aknowledge it as a problem. And refuses help.

This has placed a huge wedge in a relationship... the word divorce is throw around like a superball.

Basically it sucks.

__________________
No signature at this time.

ratbastid

Wow, grebote, you completely nailed the early years between lurkette and me. That described it perfectly. She thought she was fat (at 95lbs and 5'1" ), thought she was ugly (you've seen the pics.. well, some of you have), etc. Basically anything I said that was good about her, she would reply with a litany of the reasons why I was wrong about that thing, or why that thing didn't counteract the myriad ways she was inadequate. It was really miserable.

One of the things I had to deal with most was my need to save people. I have to be the hero, the one everyone relies on, the one who rescues others. It's no coincidence I'd end up with somebody who needs to be saved so badly, right?

I honestly don't know how we got through the first years. I don't know whether she'd agree with this or not, but a lot of the time it felt like she was actively trying to make me not love her.

Ultimately I developed a sense of humor about it. I think at some point I realized that there's nothing I can do to change her or fix her image of herself. So she's say something nasty and I'd tease her a little about being so down on herself. You know, like, "Yeah, you're pretty lousy all right. That must be why everybody loves you so much." And before long I'd have her laughing along with me. She started to see how silly she was being.

She used to do this thing where she'd sneer at herself in the mirror. Every time she looked at herself in the mirror there was a kind of sneer on her face. Shortly after I noticed that, I caught her looking in the mirror, sneering, and complaining about how ugly and pinched she always looked. We got some good laughs out of that.

Over a lot of time (a lot of time), with the help of some good counseling and (though she hates to admit it) some good medication, she's a whole lot better. She'll catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror these days and say things like, "Huh. I guess I am pretty cute!"

ruggerp11

I wrote quite a bit on this but accidently hit escape and lost it all.

I was in the same situation as you were. I was with one of my ex's for almost 4.5 years. She was much like your SO and would get down on her self for her weight and appearance. No matter how much I would compliment her about her and her body (including the specific things I liked about her) it didn't seem to help.

I encouraged her to seek help or at least be proactive about it. I would excercise or eat mor healthy my self as an example. I woudl tell her daily how beautiful I thought she was (is) and tried anything else I could think of.

It seemed to me that no matter what I said it had no affect on her. When I would tell her this "my words and feelings don't mean anyting to you" she would say two things "you have to say those things, your my boyfriend" and "yes they do, I would be much worse off if you didn't." Despite this encouragement I saw no improvment thus telling me that I didn't have any affect.

Well we broke up about a year ago. Since then we have figured out something important. During our relationship I acted like a crutch for her in this area. Once we broke up she took stock in her life and realized that something had to change. She has since taken a very proactive stance on this and has started to lose some of the weight that she felt she needed to. She is happier with who she is and has more confidence.

What it came down to is that your self esteem is something that you have to work on, and when you have a SO who will tell you what you want to hear (even if its absolutely true) it is hard to really get motivated to change what you don't like. When we broke up we realized that we only had ourselves to rely on at that point.

This made us both make some important changes

This is just one man's experience and please feel free to PM me if you want to talk further on this with me. Good luck, I know how hard it is.

O, and look into a different counserlor. They are pretty hit or miss from my personal experience.

__________________
Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it.
--Mark Twain
Do What makes you happy
--Me
BUT!
"Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness" - Chuang-Tzu

wilbjammin

Accountability and responsibility are very important in having a personal stock in your life. Supporting negative self-talk can create a cycle of negative self-talk and defeatism because there is absolutely no motivation to change. "You're beautiful, great, etc" says that you don't need to change. It is important to be supportive, but not to give the person a free pass either.

__________________
Innominate.

ruggerp11

While a good point, that is very hard to do. You want that person to look at themselves through your eyes and see them how you see them. The balance between the two is very hard to reach but important if you want to stay in that person's life.

__________________
Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it.
--Mark Twain
Do What makes you happy
--Me
BUT!
"Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness" - Chuang-Tzu

StickODynomite

I tend to be very negative about myself and my life sometimes, its usually when im really stressed out, and i get stressed over the dumbest things. Sometimes i just hate something about my body and it gets depressing thinking about it. But i get over it fast. I'm just moody and very emotional.

I dont go as far as wanting to cut myself or drive my car off a cliff or whatnot. I just get stressed, then pissed, then sad.. and then i get over it.

I'm not sure what you could do to get her to love herself. Is she on anti-depressants? I dont know if that'd help or what.

__________________
"The human mind is like a parachute, it works best when open."

Rinndalir

I was in a relationship like this for a long time. I finally gave up after realizing she wasn't willing to help herself, that she'd rather just be miserable. It was tough leaving her but worth it. I realized that you can't always help, people have to want to change and if they're not willing to then its not worth wasting your effort. You can only give so much.

Flyguy

my wife too.

Trisk

A lot of people think of therapy as something that only messed up people go to...but I went to a therapist once, just because I was going through a lot of crap at the time, and you'd be amazed at how much they help. Just having someone to talk to about all that stuff is good...even if they're not going to fix your problems.
You should encourage your girlfriend to go to a therapist.

Another thing she might want to do...if she's not happy with how she looks...this sounds stupid but working out really helps. Working out actually gets your adrenaline and seratonin levels up so after working out, you feel a lot happier and more motivated. Not to mention the added bonus of looking better once you're done .

Taking drugs (anti-depressants) should really be a last resort. You don't want to get too dependant on them.


*edit* As for what malificient said about volenteering...well, if helping others is your thing, then go for it. But I've found that you can't really help others until you help yourself. Making other people happy might be nice in the short term but it's not very rewarding and at the end of the day, all the problems you have with yourself are still there. Until you start taking measures to change them, you're going to feel bad about it.


As a side note, I think it's sad that so many girls on this board or girlfriends of people on this board have been through this. I have too. People are always telling me how great I look and how beautiful I am and all that stuff and I always find fault in myself. It's really hard to deal with not liking your self image because you start to lose motivation for other things. It's seriously gotten so bad with me that I didn't leave my house for days (I didn't want anyone to see me). I mean...I hate it when people go on and on about how bad the media is but I think it is sort of sad that pretty much no women I know are really happy with their self image. Obviously, this isn't just due to the media. The media only feeds us what we like to see. I just wish there was something we could do to make people see how great they really are.
You just have to start looking for the good things in yourself. It's easy to find the bad things...but once you start pointing out the good things, everything looks a little bit better

ManWithAPlan

what i've found generally works, because it seems though almost every woman in the world who is not a supermodel has self esteem issues *cough*go figure*cough*... anyway what i found works is something that she can't refute... say something like "you're beautiful to me", or "doesn't matter how you look, you're always beautiful to me"... things like that strike a romantic nerve and even if she doesn't believe that she's beautiful at first, she's still going to be comforted by you.

also, you have to TREAT her like she's beautiful (not to be patronizing). It's kind of vague advice really, but if you do things that make her feel beautiful without words... like maybe take pictures a lot (lurkette:-p)

i hope that helps a little bit, it's just my two cents.

__________________
In the end we are but wisps

ratbastid

Well, and... You ever met a supermodel? Think they're exempt? I doubt it.

Benz0

cliff notes?

__________________
In order to be old and wise, you must first be young and stupid...

- Benz0

denim

Okay, there's a project for all/each of us: meet a super model and see if she's happy with her body. In fact, you'll need to meet several to get enough data. Go to it!

ManWithAPlan

i was being sarcastic to make a point.

__________________
In the end we are but wisps

denim

And I was being slightly serious. Is there a problem?

ManWithAPlan

i was talking to ratbastid:-P

__________________
In the end we are but wisps

*Nikki*

Let's stick to the topic here.

denim

;-9

grebote

Thanks everyone for posting and giving your two cents. I've been unable to get to a computer all weekend to check up on the thread. I feel a little comforted that I am not the only one going through this.

Here's an update, and I don't quite know what to make of it. Last friday I posted this thread because she was in a really bad mood and really self-loathing herself. Later that day, I went over to her house and she explained to me a little bit of what was going on in her head. I think she had just figured out part of the problem, but I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

She told me that when I am with her, everything is great, she thinks less bad things about herself, because she is busy being with me and having fun and just relaxing. When I go away (for the night, or, during the school year, the week or two) these self-doubts creep back into her head, she thinks she is not good enough for me or anyone else, etc. Basically what it boils down to is that she needs me, and I don't quite know what to make of it. It's not like I can be there to hold her hand all the time, and she said as much. She said that she had to work on this, and that's a good thing.

But the problem is still there, and I don't want to be made to feel guilty for not being with her all the time. I'm just afraid that she has become dependant upon me, and that's never a good thing, in my opinion.

ruggerp11

I hate to say this but while its nice to be needed like that, I believe (from my own experience) it will be impossible (or at least very very difficult) for her to really move on from this if she is relying on you to make her happy. I don't know how many times me and the ex fought and I ended up saying "It's not fair that I am responsible for your happiness." If she becomes dependent on you then changing and (if it comes to this) getting out of the relationship will be 100% harder.

All I am saying is be very very careful about her only being happy when you're around. In my opinion, thats really not a good thing.

Basically I am echoing what you said in the last paragraph of your last post.

__________________
Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it.
--Mark Twain
Do What makes you happy
--Me
BUT!
"Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness" - Chuang-Tzu

lurkette

I don't see this as being dependent on you, exactly. I think all it argues for is the need for her to get better at silencing the critical voices when you're not around. When I'm with people I love and I have tangible evidence of their feelings for me, I'm great. But when I'm not around them for a while, and if I start to get into a bad, self-loathing mood, I start to wonder why they would want to be with me, and wonder if they've figured out what a loser I am and whether they've stopped loving me. Now, this used to manifest itself in needy behavior - making people jump through a lot of hoops to prove they still loved me, so I could be sure. Now that I'm a bit more self-aware about it, I just deal with it myself, and those around me know what I'm doing and why I'm distant, and that it has nothing to do with them.

So I say give the girl some time. She knows it's an issue, she's figuring it out and making an effort. Try not to look at this as a problem, but like you're on a really cool journey with her while she discovers who she really is. Just stay true to yourself, and be honest with her - when she's coming from that self-loathing place, just be up front: "Hon, this isn't you talking, it's the little gremlin that tells you bad things about yourself."

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

ManWithAPlan

i agree more with lurkette. she basically told you that you are the one who can help her. there's actually a sad story which i have about my first girlfriend that this reminds me of...

when i first met her, she was very shy, very introspective, not quite self loathing, but the whole "i'm fat and ugly" deal.

we were together for a year (almost exactly) and through the course of events as i kept reassuring her that she's not fat or ugly, she stopped bringing it up less and less, and i could feel a burst of confidence in her.

of course in the end she dumped me for some other guy after cheating on me with him right around our one-year anniversary.

just make sure you let her have other friends, encourage it. If she doesn't have very many friends, introduce her to some of your friends (even if the little jealous voice in side your head starts screaming "NOOO").

your reassurance and the company/attention of others should help her gain confidence.

__________________
In the end we are but wisps

Jadey

Damn! I am so glad to see so many responses to this. Grebote, I'm am currently in the same type of relationship. However, we've only been going out for about 3 or 4 months I think(we were friends first and it just gradually advanced from there). She is the most amazing girl and has sooo many awesome qualities that I feel so bad that I can't convince her how great she is. I sometimes sit and try to think of what I can possibly say to her to make her feel better. When I compliment her she always deflects that remark with a snide remark of her own or rolling her eyes. She has more positive qualities than any girl I've gone out with before and it hurts me to hear her get so down on herself.

Ratbastid, I've found myself replying with basically the same "Yeah, you're pretty lousy all right. That must be why everybody loves you so much." remark.

I'm really glad to see all of the responses on here and it's comforting to know there are couples that have dealt with this.

Grebote, thanks for starting this thread, and everyone else thanks for the repsonses!

98MustGT

I am a Newbie here!
My wife is also having serious self esteem issues as well. We have three kids, she is 5 foot tall and 120 pounds. She looks good, especially after 3 kids.

A few years ago she was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmatosa, meaning she is losing her vision. She had to give up driving two years ago, she had to stop working 2 months ago. She feels totally worthless. She has lost about 60% of her vision, she cries quite a bit, she worries about everything.

I also do not know what I can do to help her find happiness or at least make peace with this.